GERMAN CIVILIANS AND ONE WEHRMACHT OFFICER ARE ORDERED BY COLONEL SEARS OF US 4TH ARMY TO SEE RESULTS OF REGIME AT LIBERATED OHRDRUF CONCENTRATION CAMP, GERMANY, 7 APRIL 1945; LIBERATED OHRDRUF CONCENTRATION SUB-CAMP(?), GERMANY, 6 APRIL 1945; LIBERATED CONCENTRATION CAMP, HOLZEN, ESCHERSHAUSEN, GERMANY, 8 APRIL 1945 [Allocated Title]

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  • Title: GERMAN CIVILIANS AND ONE WEHRMACHT OFFICER ARE ORDERED BY COLONEL SEARS OF US 4TH ARMY TO SEE RESULTS OF REGIME AT LIBERATED OHRDRUF CONCENTRATION CAMP, GERMANY, 7 APRIL 1945; LIBERATED OHRDRUF CONCENTRATION SUB-CAMP(?), GERMANY, 6 APRIL 1945; LIBERATED CONCENTRATION CAMP, HOLZEN, ESCHERSHAUSEN, GERMANY, 8 APRIL 1945 [Allocated Title]
  • Film Number: A70 514-14
  • Other titles: CONCENTRATION CAMP MATERIAL FOR ALLIED FILM PRODUCTIONS [Allocated Series Title]
  • Summary: Unedited scenes of citizens of Ohrdruf and a Wehrmacht officer forced to view the dead and surviving inmates of Ohrdruf Concentration Camp, Germany, on 7 April 1945. Colonel Sears of US 4th Army ensures groups of civilians are shown the starved, incinerated and buried remains of victims of the camp system, and are confronted with survivors' testimony and the reactions of the US 4th Army personnel present. Colonel Sears moves around the camp, talking to survivors and seeing dead bodies. US Army at liberated concentration camp at Holzen, Eschershausen, on the river Weser, on 8 April 1945. The inmates wear black uniform. The exit of an underground V-1 Flying Bomb factory is seen.
  • Description: GERMAN ATROCITIES [Dope sheet title]. Civilian men stand with Colonel Sears of the US 4th Army as he addresses them in front of many dead bodies of inmates, and shows them the condition of survivors, who recount their experiences to the group. They are made to enter a hut to view its contents. A Wehrmacht officer with a red cross armband is gestured into the hut but holds back, shakes his head and waves his hands in refusal. He is peremptorily directed to follow and, watched by liberated inmates, is pushed swiftly in from behind by a large US Army Military Policeman who follows him through the doorway. A garishly striped sentry box stands in a compound of huts with a dead inmate sprawled before it. Charcoaled human remains in a burnt wood and metal heap, a human leg and a pickaxe in the water-filled bottom of a large excavation are spoken about and shown to the Germans by a large accompanying group of US Army personnel, a German man shakes his head dismissively when spoken to by a US soldier who points decisively off camera. Civilian women sit in the back of a truck. Two 2½ ton 6x6 Studebaker cargo trucks drive through the camp gates carrying German civilians who climb out under US Army supervision. The Wehrmacht officer climbs from the bonnet (hood) of a US Army jeep which flies a red cross flag. They are spoken to by a US Army lieutenant who consults with Colonel Sears. 4TH ARMOR FINDS VICTIMS OF ATROCITY [Dope sheet title]. A US Army soldier walks among bodies lying haphazardly in an Ohrdruf compound with many small conifer trees growing. One lying on its back has dried blood around the nose and mouth. Colonel Sears, a large man, talks to three small liberated men wearing Russian fur hats. Naked bodies are stacked in a hut and have been sprinkled with white powder. GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMP [Dope sheet title]. The liberated camp at Holzen, Eschershausen (fifteen miles south of Hanover), Germany, is shown on 8 April 1945. Russian, Polish, Czech and Jewish inmates of a wire-fenced compound with a white flag flying are looking at US soldiers of 'I' Company, 329th Infantry of the 83rd Division, 9th Army, on the road outside. They smile through the double wire gates. Most inmates wear black uniform tunics buttoned neatly down the front, black trousers and sabots or espadrilles. They are thin but not completely emaciated. One man demonstrates, with a mimed blow to his wide open mouth from a colleague, that he has no teeth left, another wears a cook's apron and some have their eye-glasses. Outside the huts, which are partially thatched with fir branches and whose window spaces have barbed wire across them, survivors catch and kill their own and each other fleas and lice. A US Army lieutenant talks with two survivors and Red Cross personnel are seen. A cave entrance to industrial looking workings described on the cameraman's dope sheet as a V-1 buzz-bomb factory, is shown with white powdered machinery beside the entrance and railtracks leading inside. US Army personnel stand talking outside.
  • Alternative Title: CONCENTRATION CAMP MATERIAL FOR ALLIED FILM PRODUCTIONS [Allocated Series Title]
  • Colour: B&W
  • Digitised:
  • Object_Number: A70 514-14
  • Sound: Silent
  • Access Conditions:
  • Featured Period: 1939-1945
  • Production Date: 1945-04-07
  • Production Country: United States of America
  • Production Details: Army Pictorial Service (Production sponsor) United States Army Signal Corps (Production company) Cummings (Production individual) Connell (Production individual) Kier, Andrew F (Production individual)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations:
  • Keywords:
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Silent Soundtrack language: None Title language: None Subtitle language: None
  • Technical Details: Format: 35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 929 ft; Running time: 10 mins
  • HD Media:
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    A70 514-14

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